Ms. Banana and Mr. Pencil walked on my desk. Curious of what was intended with having such a mess on a desk, Mr. Pencil showed great disappointment. “A desk shall always be tidy, clean and lined properly,” gesturing to the stack of books, wallets and plates. Comforting her companion, Ms. Banana stroke him gently and said “Oh dearie, don’t you think such thoughts. Wouldn’t you think everyone should decide for themselves what how they want things?” Mr. Pencil clearly didn’t like being touched, especially by a woman he just met. For all he knew, she could have terrible plans behind those sweet words. Yet, they were very tender words. His look changed from disapproving to slightly curious as he looked at Ms. Banana. “I’m sure you agree, Mr. Pencil. For example, your hair is quite neat and short. What if I, as hairdresser, didn’t think that was proper. You’d be pretty upset if I changed it, wouldn’t you?” They’d stopped walking and the misses stepped in front and tried to look into his eyes. This whole situation was making him very uncomfortable, but it seemed she wouldn’t respond to ignorance. “Yes, I assume you’re right,” he finally said, a quick look at her to find her eyes staring right back at him. Well, this was unacceptable. “Young Ms. Banana, I hope that I am greatly mistaken, but I must speak my mind before anything gets out of hand.” Gasping for air after the quick announcement he prepared the speech she was about to receive. Which would never come, for before he finished his breath Ms. Banana replied. “Mr. Pencil, why would you think of such a thing? You are not my desire.” She looked at him with dominating eyes. Even though he was taller, it required a step back. This woman was not going to be the subject of such rumors. “Oh, pardon me, uhm, shall we continue?” “Are you not used to a woman who isn’t in love at first sight, Mr.?” She was not finished with this matter. One could easily see the anger building up inside her, but her efforts to hide it were great. “No, uh, no. Not at all, Ms. I-” he stuttered, clearly not in a desirable position. “Well then, what made you think such thoughts?” An honest question, but she had a couple of possible answer in mind. Opening his mouth in several attempts to talk, Mr. Pencil decided to pull himself together. “Listen, woman, I shall not stand here idle and receive all the bizarre questions and rants you’d think to trow at me. There is nothing wrong with trying to right a situation before it goes wrong. I was only trying to be precautious!” His voice hid risen quite a bit, which had started Ms. Banana, at first. Now she looked at him with some interest. “No, you’re right, Mr. Pencil. You must have caught up some signals I didn’t send and reacted accordingly. I’m merely wondering what put you on that thought in the first place?” Leaning slightly while turning, Ms. Banana continued to stroll across the desk. There were no doubt she controlled this conversation. Disappointed that his words hadn’t given a better respond, he became a grumpy and refused to answer.

I’ll let you in on a secret Ms. Banana would never know. Mr. Pencil wasn’t born with fine lines and a strict haircut. He was a wild boy with great imagination and a popularity like no other among the other boys. Yet, the other gender always confused him. Most of them didn’t want to play with them, and the few who came along wasn’t one of them. “Watch out for the boy-girls,” the kids told him. “Why?” he asked glancing at the girls with short hair and dirt in their faces. “Girls are crazy, but girls who doesn’t act like they’re girls…” Mr. Pencil never heard the end of that sentence, for someone threw a mud ball and knocked him down. He later asked his parents why people had to or couldn’t do certain things. “It’s just the way the world works, son. If we didn’t have these gender roles, what would become of our society? We’d live like animals.” So Mr. Pencil, trusting his parents, learnt that women were crazy, but the boy-girls were worse.
Avoiding these girls would prove difficult, for they played with his friends. Even though the friend who had warned him continued to play with the girls, Mr. Pencil thought it best not to. He’d be wiser than the others. At the end of that day, one of the girls came to him. Why didn’t you play with us? We missed you. A gentle stroke on his arm, holding him close to her body. Startled by this unusual situation, he froze, mouth half open. She giggled and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He watched with big eyes as she left him, standing still, unable to move. One of his friends came to him with a smirk. “So you’ve got yourself a girlfriend, eh?” That knocked him out of his frozen state. “I-WHAT?!” It was a desperate shout, and everyone heard him, even the girl. “Whoa, what, no, no I don’t,” he said without being able to let go of her look. It was a nice pair of eyes. But he couldn’t get a girlfriend. No, especially with a boy-girl.

Mr. Pencil rarely experienced such caressing ever again.

“Do you not dare to answer me, Mr. Pencil?” Ms. Banana could see the light of a victory coming closer, and didn’t hide it. Still grumpy, Mr. Pencil answered with a lowered and tired voice, “Can’t you just leave it be?” She wouldn’t. “I can’t. For you see, it’s important that you men learn that the universe doesn’t centre around you. Everyone isn’t falling for you, no one is going to follow any of your orders, just because you’re a male. The mere assumption is pathetic.” And she laughed. For she let all her frustrations out on a man who only tried to be cautious. A man who once thought we were all equal.

Hi there, my daily writing dose. I tried to get two sides of a point in feminism. I’m not great at these things, but I tried.

I don’t feel like writing at all. I have no idea of what comes next, but I guess it’s in times like these it’s important to force oneself. So here it goes, for better or for worse:

Sundays have always been holy. Even for this girl who was nicely curled in her bed, shielded from the winter that was slowly coming. “Hey.” Something poked her shoulder. “Hey, please, can you wake up?” A whisper so low it felt like a breeze. Forced out of her sleep way too early she turned to her murder victim. “Cat,” she sighted. The fact that Cat was in her room didn’t startle her. The sun was hours away, so it was certain that a knock on the door wouldn’t get any response. “What’s the matter?” she finally managed to get out, yawning. Cat had been crying, and she was about to start again. “Come here, tell me, what is it?” Noticing the exhaustion of her body as she joined sitting on the bed’s edge she added “Have you gotten any sleep tonight?” Head shaking, it was obvious she wasn’t ready to talk. “Can,” a muffled word came out with a sob. “Can I sleep here tonight?” A question she wasn’t expecting. “Sure, yeah, go ahead. I’ll just…” And the mid-sentence was hanging there, because Cat was already asleep. What the hell?

When she woke again, the sun was shining bright through the windows. Stretching she noticed she was alone again. It was almost time for lunch! What? But the alarm, looking around for the phone, for it was not on her nightstand. She found it in her bed. Checking the alarm app, it surely was set at the right time, so it must have been turned off. Cat, you little-
A quick shower would do. As the warm water sprayed down she woke up, bit by bit. When she reached for the shampoo it felt like the warm water speared her back. Turning her back away from the water she tried to look for a wound or something. What in the world? There was something there, but she couldn’t see it properly. With the water still running she went to the mirror and tried to get the fog away. There! At the base of her spine. When did I get a freaking tattoo?! She tried to touch it, but it hurt badly. It didn’t look like a regular tattoo, though? The spiraling and intertwining pattern was one thing, but it was in a golden color. It reminded her of something, she’d seen it quite recently… The pattern almost looked like a scar. Leaving a mark in her skin, deeper. She could feel it. Slightly more gentle she stroked the skin. She could actually feel in her fingers where the twirling lines went. It wasn’t huge, but covered quite a bit of her lower back. But most importantly, how the heck did it get there?! She most definitely hadn’t gone to a tattoo artist, she didn’t have that kind of money lying around! And it didn’t even look like it had just gotten there. But it had. “How?”
A failed shower later she found some baggy clothes that wouldn’t irritate her back and went for lunch. Ignoring the increasing pain in her back she was after all hungry. It wasn’t anything special and she couldn’t find Cat so she found a seat by herself. Finally getting some food in her stomach made the day a lot easier to handle. Now she could actually think. What really happened last night?

“Hey, Cat?” No response from the other side of the door. Another knock without any further luck and she went in. “Hi you,” a small whisper to the girl in bed. A grunt in respond. Her roommate must still be in the cafeteria, for it was just those two in the room. Cat was laying in bed, but sat up when she saw the food. Noticing the Cat’s look she quickly added, “I brought you some food, since you missed lunch.” “Thanks. Sorry for last night, that was pretty weird, right?” A joking smile quickly went across her mouth. “It sure was, what happened?” Grabbing a chair she was getting ready for a long story. “Oh, nothing special, just… things,” Cat said fleetingly. That really wasn’t a good answer, and she wasn’t going to let her get away with it. “Come on. You have to tell me something. You seriously woke me up in the middle of the night, something must have happened.” Cat stopped eating and studied her shoes. “It’s nothing, really. I overreacted, it doesn’t matter now. Thanks for the food.” And just like that she was dismissed. She could feel it, and she didn’t like it at all. Why couldn’t she tell her? In shock she rose up and went out. She clearly wasn’t welcome anymore. They were friends. Close friends, at least she thought so. She would understand, or try to. She wouldn’t lose her, but crushing her wasn’t the solution either. This was all too much. Once inside her own room she grabbed the newly borrowed book and fled into a new world. More problems, but not her own.

That’s all I could get in an hour. Lots of mysteries building up. Also, I haven’t forgotten the meeting with Josh. I was intending to blend it in the conversation with Cat, but I had too many loose ends. I don’t have the answers to the problems I’ve created, so bear with me, folks!

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I’ve been procrastinating, so technically it will be tomorrow for me when I publish it, but that’s merely details. Thank you for all the nice responds I’ve gotten. Tips and ideas are always welcome!

Who really cared about the trigonometry of the world, she certainly didn’t. Soft knocks on the door woke her from the hate trans she’ buried herself in. 12:08, lunch was passed and she hadn’t even noticed. Odd, it was usually the first thing that crossed her mind while studying. “Com’on, it’s pizza! First ones there gets the best pieces. Move!” A little shocked by the yelling and sight of everyone running past her door, she automatically put on a hoodie and followed quickly. “Dude, why didn’t you get me earlier? Now we’re only going to be left with the side slices.” The school rarely had anything even similar to fast food. Seems like today was special. “Sorry, I didn’t know. What were you doing anyway? I tried to text you earlier.” Checking her phone she found the message. “Sup? Bored.” She looked at her friend, skeptically. “Really? ‘sup’? What are you, 14?” “Hey, I was really bored OK? Theories here, theories there. Why does everyone have to write down what they think all the time?” Fist in the air, she silently mimicked a curse at someone upstairs. “Relax, Cat, if old men didn’t write, what else would they do in boring ancient Greece?” A friendly hit on the shoulder and the subject was dropped. The cafeteria was packed, to say the least. Back of the line they went and enjoyed the small of fresh pizza.

They couldn’t find any seats outside, so they sat down on the grass. “Any plans for tonight?” Cat asked, with enough curiosity to get an actual answer. “Not really. Josh is persisting to meet, so I’m going over to his place. How about you? A new club to raid?” Little was quite as amusing as teasing friends. “Ahaha, you’re so funny,” and she dropped the fake laugh, “that was once. Can’t you let it go?” The annoyance was clearly visible in that tan face. It was that kind of neutral tan, where the friends didn’t look like ghosts in comparison. “You singlehandedly causing the police to show up? Face it, that’s never going cold.” Cat gave her the half-smile of defeat before finish her slice. “Fine. Back to our boring old men’s writing then?”

Catherine Brook was a fine specimen of odd friend. She’d make the strangest connections and come up with the most fascinating ideas, it was no mystery she aced class discussions. It didn’t make her popular, outsmarting her classmates, but she seemed fine nevertheless. Quality, over quantity. Unless it was an essay. They had found each other on ground zero, the library. The school was famous for its vast collection of books on the creative arts. Looking for the same book they started discussing the author’s theory. Like always Cat had a good understanding of the book, but this girl wasn’t backing away, she was fighting against. She didn’t agree, and she rarely has ever since.

That’s all for now.I was actually writing on a different passage, but it didn’t seem like the right timing, so I’m saving it. I’m really struggling with names, but Cat was the closest I could get at the moment. I might change it later, so don’t get too attached to it. Do you have any suggestions on the name of the main character? Which names would suit her?

That really wasn’t a good idea. Wet footprints lead from the pond to her bedroom. Thank God she had saved up enough to get a single-room. Sharing the story of how she fell into the water would certainly not help on her mood. Damn fish-bird. With the already down she twisted out of the soaked rags and hurried into the bathroom. Cold water poured out, but it was still warmer than her blue lips. She’d have to get up earlier to catch up with the homework she was supposed to do tonight. That didn’t really matter. All that was in her head was the slight burning sensation of blood returning to her skin. Washing out some dirt that managed to get in her hair there was absolutely nothing on her mind. Just her and the water.

Doo-wee-doo! Ugh, god damn Doctor Who. Creatively cursing her choice of alarm tone she half slid, half rolled out of bed and managed to get across the room where she’d hidden her phone. “Frodo traveled to Mordor with The Ring, you can get out of bed!” Mission accomplished. Still pretty drowsy she put on some rags and turned on the excuse of a TV. No interesting news today. A suspected arsenal case in the neighbor town. The owner seemed to have found a fine mixture between shocked, devastated and furious. Selling religious artifacts sure seemed to piss someone off. The rest of the world seemed like the mess it was yesterday.

A vibration and a muffled sound came from somewhere between the couch’s cushions. Fishing up her phone she read the concise SMS. “This is an automatic notification. The following books are due within the next 24 hours. ‘John Green – Looking for Alaska‘ and ‘Markus Zusak – The Book Thief‘. Have a pleasant day.” The books war still lying next to her bed. She’d thought she could finish them both, but school continued to occupy her time. Not even considering all the time she spent fixing Josh’ problems. With only about a hundred pages left she figured she could finish the book before diving into her homework. Grabbing an apple from her desk and “Looking for Alaska” from the floor she made herself comfortable in the couch again.

The mentioning of the Smoke Hole reminded her of their own pond. That fish, or bird, or whatever was truly fascinating. It couldn’t be real though? She’d never seen anything like it, but admittedly creatures in the water wasn’t her speciality. Maybe she could draw it down. At least it would make a great picture. No, she had to focus. Book, then homework, then Josh. I could never live by a schedule, she thought with a little chuckle, and turned the page.

I have to end it here. I’ve actually come up with a great idea for this little story of mine, but I’m going to be strict with myself. Only one hour of writing a day, no more, no less. Hope you’ll enjoy my attempt at writing!

P.S.
I made a couple of links so you can check up those books. They are incredibly beautiful and definitely worth reading.

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“Write every day” is a tips I never stop hearing. Yet, it probably has some truth to it. This is my effort for today. If you like it so far, give me a little sign and I’ll try to work on it tomorrow.

The school campus was quite. It was the time between a well deserved rest and the realization that it was a Friday night. Most were forcing themselves to finish the last task for tonight, at it made the air quite and full of thoughts.

The pond was still moving after the stone hit the surface. One, two, plop. She had to work on that. A small chill, I should get my jacket. Not yet, the piece could be broken any moment and she wanted to preserve this memory. Hmm, a faint sight. Winter was certainly coming, the air started to be a little more chill and the dark came fast. 18:34. Looking up from her watch she saw something in the water.

A light glittering, from under the water. Leaning over she could see it clearly, but what was it? It seemed like a golden phoenix, only smaller and under water. As far as she knew, birds didn’t swim under water. This one did, and so gracefully. Right and left, down and upwards, entertaining its viewer endlessly. A sudden chill went through her body and she realized she’d put her fingers in the water. The bird didn’t run away, so she kept reaching down. And just as she felt the silk feathers it turned its head and looked into her eyes, blank. Grey, the bird lost its color! She grasped for it, lifting it up, but it was heavy. Too heavy. She rolled into the water and lost grip of the bird. Ice cold water, stiff body, automatically she swelled the sharp air and found the spot she was seconds ago. Cursing the cold weather she remembered why she fell into the water and searched the water. It was long gone, and so was her plan to meet Josh after school tomorrow if she got a fever.

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There are many things in life that are more valuable than a stock of money. The tiny details noticed by the open mind, the senseless conversations shared between equal souls, the pause in a song, the irrelevant things that can be the whole island to Miranda’s world. Seconds spent in a book store, crowded by travelling people, working, thinking, hurrying, and amongst them there is you. Deep inside a novel recently discovered. Calm music surrounds you from nowhere, everywhere. Swirling around in a constant orbit, soothingly embedded in the story told between the words. Curled together in a little corner you sit, books covering the little body on the floor. High in the ceiling, long against the walls, rising on the tables, the floors are filled with books unread, ready to tell their story. “Feed on me, I’ve got a nice little tale to share”, they shout in a lulling voice, beaming alongside your thoughts. There is too much to read, too much to discover. Book after book fall upon you, trapping you in a circle of knowledge. Time leaves, and there is nothing that can hinder you. Curled together in a little corner you sit, books covering the little body on the floor. The books speak, and you are listening.